


just breathe (it'll be okay)

by machellex



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternative Universe - FBI, F/M, and the format is a little atypical, bare with me, it's a happy ending kinda sorta, just a little, this gets a little dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 13:51:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10191332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/machellex/pseuds/machellex
Summary: “I have a secret.”“We all have secrets.”“I have to tell you,” she whispers.He’s quiet, eyes searching, hands holding her shoulders at arm’s length. He licks his lips, and his voice is hoarse, caught at the back of his throat, “If it’s illegal, then I’m bound to report it, Jyn. It’s my job. Please don’t do that to me. Please don’t make me turn you in.”Her gaze falls to the clenched fists in her lap. “Then maybe it’d be better to break up.”--Or:Dating an FBI agent is hard.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i tried to do research on interrogation and investigation procedures and protocols, and i read through a lot of things, but eventually i just got tired, and i think you'll be able to note my lazy research somewhere lmao
> 
> as always, i am apologizing in advance for inaccuracies

Cassian knows all her secrets.

This, she knows.

After all, she’s the one who told him. 

Cassian has secrets as well, but she’s not sure if he would call them so. They are defined more as a self-tormenting enigma, a prison constructed through walls of guilt, layered brick by brick with a history he hopes to forget but can’t. Rather than secrets, they are his sins, bloody in so many ways, conniving in others—they are the ones she would never shame him for, but he will shoulder the burden regardless.

If she had to put it in other terms, she would say she is Cassian’s biggest secret. This is what she thinks as she sits across from the two detectives on her case, their beady dark eyes carefully gauging her body language and the tone of her voice.

They are asking her if Cassian knew, if he _knows_.

Cassian knows all her secrets.

She will not tell them that. 

She will not tell them anything.

_“I have a secret.”_

_“We all have secrets.”_

_“I have to tell you,” she whispers._

_He’s quiet, eyes searching, hands holding her shoulders at arm’s length. He licks his lips, and his voice is hoarse, caught at the back of his throat, “If it’s illegal, then I’m bound to report it, Jyn. It’s my job. Please don’t do that to me. Please don’t make me turn you in.”_

_Her gaze falls to the clenched fists in her lap. “Then maybe it’d be better to break up.”_

“Miss Erso, you’re dating an FBI agent. You really should know better than to withhold information from us.”

She wants to retort snidely. They are using him, using Cassian as an interrogation tactic against her, and she hates them for it. She is only as strong as her weakest link. She hates that she has a weak link. She will not let them get the best of her.

She doesn’t answer. She’s sure they’re aware that she never will.

There’s a gleam in the detective’s eyes. He is blonde and with a hard, aged face that she can’t decipher all too well past that she’s absolutely sure he doesn’t trust her. Or he hates her. Or it may just be a mixture of both. “Where were you that night, Miss Erso?”

Jyn is silent. Jyn is silent because they’ve asked her this question so many times already, and she is tired of answering. Jyn is silent because she will protect herself, but mainly, she will protect Cassian.

“Orson Krennic was your father’s friend.” _Friend_ is not the right word. She doesn’t say this. “They were working on a project together. Members stated that you were always at the lab. How often were you there?”

Jyn doesn’t say.

She won’t say.

“I invoke my privilege against self-incrimination.”

“Miss Erso—”

“I want my lawyer.”

_When she opens her front door, the last person she expects to see—the_ last _—is Cassian._

_Their last conversation had ended in angry tears—and, well, it’s been a while since she continued a relationship or even a friendship with someone she couldn’t be honest with._

_“How bad is it?” he says immediately, a deep, pained furrow printed between his brows. His hands are clenched tightly around her doorframe, his lungs sound almost like the air has left his body._

_“How bad is what?”_

_“Your secret. How bad is your secret?”_

_She pauses, searching his gaze. There’s a sense of urgency, of agony, of miserable desperation. Distress is written in the dark shadows below his eyes, wariness marked along the wrinkles in his skin that is so pale, too pale. And he looks skinnier than she’s ever known him, his cheeks sunken and hollow, his torso slim. “Have you been taking care of yourself?”_

_She knows the answer. She doesn’t know why she asks._

_Frustration laces his voice, evident in the way his gaze takes root on her, refuses to stray. “Jyn. Answer my question.”_

_She crosses her arms, shoulder leaning against the frame. “Answer mine. When was your last full meal?”_

_He narrows his eyes, and he looks as if he wants to lie through his teeth and snap at her for worrying about the wrong things. She thinks she’s worrying about the right thinks—isn’t his health more important than anything? But Cassian simply shakes his head and begrudgingly mumbles under his breath, “I had a sandwich just the other day.”_

_When he says ‘just the other day,’ the reality is he probably hasn’t eaten for a few days now, living solely off of watery coffee and some saltine crackers stolen from the coffee shop. She presses the door open wider and steps back. “I have leftover pasta.”_

_He hesitates, feet shuffling for a split second._

_“Come in, Cassian.” Then she’s turning before he can stop her, padding her way to her fridge to pull out the tupperware._

_“Jyn—”_

_“It wasn’t a question.”_

_It takes only a second before he walks in and shuts the door behind him._

“Maybe it would be better if I left. I’m good at that.”

There’s a slam as the drawer to his dresser flings shut, its body shaking with the impact. He’s glaring at her sharply, his hands curling around the edge—so rigid, she can see his knuckles whiten even from where she sits. “Don’t even think about it.”

“We wouldn’t be in this position,” she murmurs, tightly pressing her body against the pillow at her chest. The fabric twists in her fingers, over and over until its coiled stiff. When she releases, it spirals out slowly in her hand. “It might be good.”

She doesn’t really believe that.

Neither, she thinks, does he. 

At least, not by the blatant glower that darkens across his features. 

He stalks towards the bed until he’s directly standing in front of her, arms reaching out to gently, firmly hold her, eyes glazing over with a familiar tenderness. Jyn shifts until one leg dangles off the edge of the bed, arms still tightly wound around the pillow. Her chin lifts until his line of sight is directly parallel to hers. 

Cassian’s hand moves to cradle her cheek, feel the soft curve down her jaw. “I promised, Jyn.”

Her eyes flutter close, and she leans into his palm, warm, comforting despite the topic at hand. “It was a dumb promise,” she mumbles against his skin. 

“Jyn.”

She opens her eyes.

“I promised.”

_“It’s bad,” she tells him when they’re lying side by side in bed. She feels him bury himself in the crevice of her neck, his arms tightening around her waist at the sound of her words, skimming the surface of her stomach. There’s a tension that rides through his body, and she’s afraid like she’s always been before that what she says will keep him away for the rest of her life._

_“Do I want to know?” he murmurs._

_“You have to.” She turns until she’s facing him, and there’s a sadness to his features. She hates that and wishes she could wipe it away with a wave of her hand. “You have to know because you’ll find out one day, and you’ll hate me for lying to you. And I need you to decide if you want to hate me now.” She pauses, hesitating. “I would rather end it while I can save myself. I have to save myself.”_

_His eyes are shut, and she can’t tell what he’s thinking, not really._

_“Cassian.”_

_“I don’t know,” he whispers. “I don’t know if I can do this.”_

_“I’m not expecting you to.”_

_His thumb caresses against her cheek. “How bad is bad?”_

_She inhales deeply. “I won’t be your burden unless you think it’s worth it.”_

_“I could lose my job. Or… go to prison,” he says slowly, carefully. “If it’s that bad, those are the consequences.”_

_“So let me give you a way out.”_

He doesn’t choose the way out. Sometimes, he wishes he did.

Not because he wants to but because he wouldn’t be dealing with _this_.

By law, he’s supposed to come forward, by law, he shouldn’t be on her side, shouldn’t be so fucking in love with her that he can’t differentiate between what is ethically right and wrong—but, he can’t. Because he is. 

“Andor, come on!” Draven slams the chair against the table, but Cassian doesn’t do anything but sit. “You know better than this. When you became a federal agent, you swore under oath to report anything and everything you know to the government. They’ve tried solving this case for years, and it’s been left buried under thousands of others—and you are hiding something from us!” His voice lowers, hissing. “You saw the footage, Andor. You know Jyn Erso is implicated in this somewhere. So fucking say something!”

Cassian rubs his jaw slowly, weariness evident in his motions. He sighs, “I already told you everything I know, Draven.”

“Then make Jyn Erso talk.”

“If she has nothing to talk about, then she has nothing to talk about—”

“Andor!” Draven's hands grip the table, and Cassian can visibly see the tension crawling through his knuckles. There’s a growl to the back of his throat, his pitch dropping a notch. “You can be charged as an accessory to murder if Erso is found guilty.”

Cassian’s eyes are sharp. “The only new evidence found is that you placed her at the scene. When she was nine! You are holding on to this case by a thread, without even enough evidence to bring her into custody. Speculation isn’t going to get you anywhere, and I’m telling you—Jyn is innocent.”

She’s not.

He will not say that.

_“I’ve killed a lot of people.”_

_Jyn blinks, her hand at the edge of her door. She watches as Cassian centers his gravity, his gaze hardened on the ground, jaw locked in a tick. He looks up then, like he’s pressing her to answer him. So she does. “Okay,” she says softly._

_“You don’t understand—” Frustration laces his voice, and his fingers move to rub the back of his neck. “In the military—I can count the bodies. Not all of them are adults, some so small, I don’t know how it even happened, how their death stained my skin. And as an agent…”_

_He sighs, fingers running through his hair, and she watches as his eyes cloud in a daze, watches as his sins come back to haunt him like a ghost he’ll never be able to rid of._

_“I’ll wake up, sometimes, and all I can see is blood spilled across my fingers—what I’m trying to say is, these are my sins. And they are fucking terrible sins, and if it’s not as bad as that—if your secret is not as bad as that, I won’t leave you.” He smiles wryly. “How can I if I’m living with a demon myself?”_

_She’s staring, considering. Her eyes close._

_And then she’s walking inside, and he’s following, and the door shuts behind them so that they’re enclosed in a space just between the two of them. His hand reaches out to touch her, carefully, softly. “Jyn, I’m ready to hear it. And I won’t leave you. I won’t leave you, I promise.”_

_Fear flits through her heart, and she can feel it pounding in her chest. She’s sure if Cassian listened well, he could hear it too. “You’ll hate me.”_

_“I won’t.”_

_“How can you be so sure?”_

_He’s pressing her body to the edge of the table, gently squeezing her hand as he sits opposite her on her old, ratty sofa. “I am not a decent person, Jyn,” he whispers. “Just take me through it, slowly.”_

_She inhales deeply, soaks in the dry air left to breathe._

_“I killed my father.”_

When Cassian comes back, there’s a scurry in his bedroom and a pandemonium too loud and obscure for him to ignore. He hangs his coat on the hook by the closet before slowly making his way to the room, wary of the cause and commotion. His hand presses the door open until she comes into view. 

Jyn stands in frustration at the side of his bed, a suitcase wide and open with clothes and make-up messily strewn across it. Her fingers clench alongside the edge, lips pursed, eyes refusing to meet his gaze. 

His heart stills. “What are you doing?”

She doesn’t turn to look at him, but slowly her hands are moving again, folding sloppily, packing, shoving—“I thought you’d be home later.”

“There were some… complications at work,” he says slowly. By the look on her face, she’s aware of what kind. He crosses his arms. “Jyn.” 

To his chagrin, she doesn’t answer him, folds, shoves, stuffs what she can into the suitcase—

Cassian growls, vexation written across his features and in the rigidness of his body, before he stalks over and grabs her hand. She freezes in his grip. “You’re not doing this.”

She doesn’t pull her hand away, but her gaze is set on her suitcase, a fiery sort of resignation burning behind her eyes. He’s sure, if she could, she’d set the whole thing on fire. “I am doing it. You’re seeing it. It’s happening.”

Slowly, he takes her other hand until they’re both gripped tightly in his. She doesn’t move to pull away, but her gaze stays averted. “Jyn, look at me.”

“No.”

“Why not?” he asks softly. 

Her voice croaks angrily. “You’ll make me change my mind.”

A small smile tugs at his lips, amusement burrowing beside his frustration. “That, I will.” He pulls at her wrists until she’s nestled under his chin, body pressed up against his. She doesn’t fight it, simply sucks in a deep, shaky breath. He would think she’s crying if he didn’t know better. But this is probably close, as close as she may get. “Don’t be irrational, Jyn.”

After a moment, her arms wrap around his torso, slowly, cautiously. “It’d be better.”

“For who?” he whispers.

“For you. It’d be better for you.”

He hums, fingers pressing lightly into the crook of her shoulder blades. “I don’t think you get to make that choice for me.”

She buries her face into his shirt, fingers twirling at the fabric before clenching it between her fists. “You don’t deserve this.”

He leans back, moving his hand until it’s lifting her chin, until her eyes meet his. “Jyn, neither do you. I told you. I _promised_ you. I’m here—through hell and back, I’m with you all the way.” He pauses, muses to himself, “You do know it’s against the law to leave the city while they’re investigating you.”

“A lot of things are against the law,” she replies dryly. She shakes her head, “Besides, they’d never find me.”

This, he knows. 

Jyn’s a hider, a runner. 

If she doesn’t want to be found, they’ll never find her. 

He’s not sure he would either.

He’s thankful she hasn’t run from him, not yet. 

His hand moves to palm her cheek, caresses gently. “You’re not leaving,” he says softly. “Not unless it’s with me. After this is over, we’ll go somewhere. Never come back. Just have a little patience.”

“It’ll never be over,” she whispers. 

“They have nothing on you, Jyn. Nothing but a video of Saw picking you up from the outskirts of the building, and it was the _only_ new evidence to the case, and only because of technology advances.” He presses forward, until their breaths intermix, one exhale becoming the other's, until his forehead frisks hers. “And Saw is dead. They have nothing on you. Nothing but speculation and no reason to suspect you at all if it weren’t for Draven.”

She’s silent. Then, “It’d be better for you. If they find out—”

“They won’t.”

“If they find out, you’ll be implicated in this. If it were me, it’d be fine, but—”

“Jyn.”

“Cassian,” she says in frustration. “I should leave. I really should leave.”

He looks at her, really looks at her, and though he’s sure seventy or eighty percent of her is made up of fierce determination, the other thirty or twenty is fear and nothing else. His touch moves gently along her jaw, sliding under her chin so carefully until he lifts and his mouth is pressing against hers. Her lips are gentle, soft, taking everything slowly, easily, and he’s memorized her kiss like he’s memorized her body—like learning a language so that it becomes fluent, effortless, so that he can’t forget it if she leaves.

It’s for moments like this that he’s got her carved into his brain, for the times she’ll run before he even gets a chance to stop her. Cassian won’t let her leave him—doesn’t want to let her leave him, but it’s for those moments that he may not get a choice. 

His lips brush against the corner of her mouth before he pulls away. “I need you to stay. It would be better for me if you stayed.”

There’s frustrated tears in the corners of her eyes, and it almost makes him smile because he knows she hates it when she cries, even if just a little. “I don’t have a lot of patience.”

“That’s fine. Just have a little bit of hope.”

_“Are you going to turn me in?”_

_He closes his eyes briefly. “Should I?”_

_“I don’t know.” She pauses, watches him. “You hate me. You see me differently.”_

_His eyes flutter open. “Do you see me differently? Sins and all?”_

_“No,” she whispers. “You’re Cassian.”_

_“I don’t hate you, Jyn.”_

_“Why not?” she asks, voice desperate, croaking. She wants him to hate her, wants him to feel the guilt that consumes her. “Why not? I hate me. He shouldn’t have died. I shouldn’t have killed him--”_

_“Because it wasn’t your fault,” he whispers, tugs at her hand until her face is pressed against his chest. “It wasn’t your fault. You were nine years old, Jyn. Nine.”_

_“The world will say differently. And I might agree,” she murmurs into the fabric of his shirt._

_“We all have sins, some different than others, some seemingly worse than others.” He takes a deep breath, shaky. “My sins are worse, I promise. And if the world caught wind, I’m sure they’d agree.”_

_“But you’re a soldier. You were following orders.”_

_“So, Jyn, were you.”_

“The case is being dropped.”

Cassian’s hand stills at his desk, cup of coffee in one hand, a pen in the other. He sets both of them down slowly. “What do you mean?” he says, finally, when he feels like he can form coherent words to say. 

Draven scowls. “I mean, there’s not enough evidence to place Erso near the scene of the crime or on the murder weapon, and we’re being forced to drop the case. After reviewing her interviews right after their deaths, they’re ruling that Galen Erso and Orson Krennic simply killed each other in a heated argument even though it _clearly_ does not make sense considering—” He stops, sighs. “Forget it. All you need to know is that your girlfriend’s off the hook.”

Then Draven’s out the door, and Cassian feels like his world is spinning, slightly, like his shoulder could suddenly move without the weight of the world pressing down against him. Cassian’s scrambling for his stuff, suddenly, pulling together his paperwork, and then he’s out the door and headed straight towards the commissioner’s office. 

Mothma is at her desk, her attention focused on the computer before her, hands moving fluidly across the keyboard. When Mothma sees him, he can see it in her eyes to wait for a moment--she's busy--, but he doesn’t have the patience, and he’s dropping the items on her desk before anyone can stop him.

She stops typing. “What’s this?”

“I’m resigning. Effective immediately.” He slides his letter, written up ages ago, really, waiting for the moment that her case would be dropped, for this to be _over_. “My gun, badge, gear. It’s everything. Paperwork for my last cases, which isn’t much considering… recent events.”

She raises a brow at him and scans everything over. Then exhales a long, weary breath. “Are you sure, Andor?”

“More than sure. I can’t do this anymore. I need… what I need is a change of pace.” 

He doesn’t provide much more.

She doesn’t ask.

When he leaves the building, Cassian’s never felt more relieved in his goddamn life.

_There’s a dead body in the middle of the floor, blood strewn against concrete, eyes wide, unmoving, skin pallid, cold—Jyn can’t stand seeing it, needs to close her eyes or else she’ll hurl._

_“Star… dust,” her father breathes, and Jyn is crying, and she can’t see anything aside from the way his hand curls around hers, tightly, carefully. She’s dipping her head into the crook of his shoulder, feels her breath being sucked out of her, and the air feels so dry, and she just can’t breathe. “Stardust, please.”_

_“No. No, no, no, no,” she repeats, hands tightening around his. There’s a little blood on his body, but most of it isn’t his. She doesn’t think he can move, his limbs awkwardly twisted in all the wrong angles—something must have happened while Galen had hidden her in the capsule, must have rendered him useless and the other body simply dead. “Papa, please. Papa, you can’t die, please.”_

_“I love you, my Stardust. My beautiful baby girl, I love you, and I need you… to grab the gun by that man—”_

_“Papa, I can’t,” she cries. “I can’t.”_

_“I need you to pull the trigger,” he says, voice weak. “I need you to do it… before the police arrive. Saw will come. He’ll take you… somewhere… safe.”_

_“Stop talking like this! Stop! I can’t kill you, Papa, I can’t.”_

_“The plans are in my head. He’s been after it for so long—and there’ll be more. More who… come after me. You have to pull the trigger, Stardust. So that no one will have access to the files. So that no one has access to the weapon—”_

_“Papa! I can’t! I can’t kill you, I can’t,” Jyn repeats, over and over, somewhere between her sobs and her snot and her broken heart. “I won’t do it. I won’t. Papa, I love you.”_

_“Stardust—please. Trust me, Jyn. Everything I do, I do it… to protect you,” he says, then coughs so much blood, Jyn wants to run somewhere and let her body breathe. He gasps for air, winces at the ache in his body. “Shit… hurts, but… I’ll make it to the hospital at this rate—pull the trigger, Jyn. Grab the gun. Pull the trigger.”_

_“Papa—” she pulls away because she can’t stand this, seeing him like this, and he’s suffering so, and she simply doesn’t know what to do._

_“Pull the trigger.”_

_“No—”_

_“Do it for me.”_

_“I can’t—”_

_“Jyn, everything will be okay. I promise.” He closes his eyes. “Please.”_

_She doesn’t believe he can promise that._

_But she somehow forces herself to grab the gun by the fabric of her dress, has no idea how to work the mechanics of the gun but manages to click the buttons according to her father’s instructions, looks him in the eye—_

_“I love you, Papa,” she says._

_“I love you, Stardust.”_

_She doesn’t let herself watch him die, kicks the gun to the side of the room away from reach, refuses to let herself cry because she’s tired of crying, and she knows she won’t stop if she thinks about his blood on her hands._

_And later, when Saw picks her up, he helps her burn her clothes._

_They survive the interrogations._

_The story is simple:_

_Orson Krennic and Galen Erso were working on a nuclear weapon. Erso, to turn into the government. Krennic, for his own personal gains. When Krennic tries to steal the plans, Erso is forced to erase all files and kill Krennic in defense for himself. In the end, he kills himself too._

_Jyn was in the building—it’s her father’s lab, after all. He kept her safe during the fight, hidden away._

_Somewhere before or after, Saw picks her up. He keeps his answers to a minimum._

_The question, really, that the investigators have never understood was how the gun ended so far out of reach from either party. This is the question they cannot solve, why they have always believed a third party was responsible for one or both deaths._

_But Jyn is nine years old, and only young and fresh-off-training Draven sees possibility in her guilt and no one else._

_But Jyn was nine years old, and still, she will never forget that her father’s blood remains on her hands and no one else’s._

When Jyn gets home, the apartment is empty. 

And by empty, she means… a standstill sort of empty, like it is missing the components that makes her consider it home. 

She eyes the walls carefully—wonders if they have always been bare, always been so white and lonely, like an asylum waiting to cave her in.

“Cassian?”

When she makes it to the bedroom, she freezes. Then slowly steps inside. The blankets have been folded, neatly at the edge of the bed. When she reaches for the drawers, they’re empty. Closet, empty. Bathroom, empty. 

Jyn blinks, feels panic rising in her chest, sinks herself at the edge of the bed before it expands too much for her body to handle.

He’s left her. He’s up and left her, he’s had to. 

He couldn’t handle it anymore.

He promised he’d never leave her, but she knew… always knew it was too good to be true. Everyone else has left her—why should Cassian be any different? 

She doesn’t let herself cry, only slides until her head hits the mattress, arms covering her forehead. When she closes her eyes and submits to darknesses, she thinks she cries internally, somewhere, a sound, wailing in the back of her mind. 

And then she’s crying.

_Please. Don’t leave me. I love you._

When the front door slams maybe hours later, she’s jolted awake. She rubs her eyes sleepily, pulls herself up so that she’s in a sitting position. “Cassian?” she manages to ask, warily, wearily, maybe with a little bit of hope.

Cassian’s always told her to have a little bit of hope. 

When silence answers her, she slips her feet to the ground and pads out into the living room. 

Relief courses through her veins when she sees the breadth of his back, bending to gather their shoes in a box. He’s turning at the sound of her footsteps, a wide smile painted across his lips—so happy, charming, really. It’s been a while since she’s seen that across his features, and she can’t help the small quirk that pulls at her lips. “Jyn.” 

“Hi.”

Then his features fall, and he drops the box in his hands before he’s striding over, cupping her cheeks. There’s a knot between his brows as he scans her face. “You were crying.” It’s not a question. 

She sucks in her breath, hates that he can tell so fucking easily. Her gaze falls to the bridge of his nose, but brutal honesty is how Jyn has always dealt with life so she proceeds forward. “I wasn’t sure you were coming back.”

Recognition seems to dawn on him. Then, “I turned in my badge today.”

Her brows furrow together. “Why? What are you going to do while they work on the case?”

He shrugs. “I was thinking about moving.”

The panic comes back, and it's edging into her voice. Dread courses through her veins, the feeling of bile at the back of her throat. “Where?”

“I have some friends who live in Jedha who can offer housing for a while until I find a place—”

“Jedha is really far,” she interrupts slowly. Her fingers clench to the hem of his shirt. “Are you—you’re leaving?”

Amusement crosses his features, and she doesn't know why, but she hates it. “Have you had your phone on at all today?”

She pauses, considers his words. “I think it’s dead.”

His hand brushes her cheek. “They should have called to tell you the case is being dropped. You’re off the hook, Jyn.”

_Off the--_ Her heart feels like it might burst, just a bit. Her brain seems to wire itself chaotically, a static in the back of her mind as she tries to process his words.  “I’m…” The words get caught in the back of her throat, too dry to fish it out of her body. She clears her throat, licks her lips, “Really?”

“And we’re moving,” he says gently. “We’re going to get the hell away from here. Like I promised.”

“So we’re both… we’re both going to Jedha.” She thinks back to the empty rooms, empty drawers and closets--he must have packed everything while she was out, and suddenly, that explains a lot.

“Until I find something better.” He grins. “You didn’t think you’d rid of me so easily, did you?”

She’s silent, still processing, blinking. “I should hope not,” she says, finally. 

He presses a kiss against her forehead, before wrapping his arms around her. “I promised you, I was staying with you. Through hell and high water.”

“You did.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Not unless you want me to.”

“I… don’t.”

“Jyn, it’s over. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Her mind flashes to her father, still feels his blood on her hands, but there’s something else—a weight of some sort lifting from her body. She closes her eyes. He did promise this, didn’t he. Everything’s going to be okay. She wonders if her father is looking down on her—she's never tried to think of it like that before—but she wonders if he's watching out for her. If he's never blamed her for his death like she blames herself. 

Maybe all he ever wanted was for her to move on, for her to be happy. 

Everything's going to be okay.

“It is, isn’t it?” 

**Author's Note:**

> WHHOOT wow done what a ride i've been working on this all week i'm so glad it's done even if there are some lazy parts in there :')
> 
> a couple of notes: there are a lot of ethical... ambiguities here (i.e.--should cassian turn jyn in, should jyn be deemed guilty for killing her father even though he wanted her to? is this assisted suicide, is it different bc she's a minor etc, etc) i don't want to get philosophical or political, so i probably won't answer anything according to that (esp bc my knowledge of criminal law is low low low--i p much know as far as a bit of business law) 
> 
> when i was thinking of this story, i was thinking of "the storyteller" & "the pact" by jodi picoult, but generalizing it, these ethical issues take root in a lot of situations worldwide--again, won't go into anything about it, and i am sorry if you do not agree with the results  
>    
>  **for the sake of the story, cassian loves jyn too much to turn her in, and maybe jyn should be guilty but is not implicated in such ways**
> 
>  ** _quick recap (or the mumbo jumbo in my head) for those who made it:_**  
>  Cassian & Jyn date before she even knows he's an FBI agent, but when things get too serious, Jyn has to be upfront with Cassian about her past. This, because she's afraid it'll come back to bite her in the ass (it did), and when that happens, and Cassian finds out, he'll hate her anyway. After some discrepancies on whether she should tell him, Cassian agrees that he's willing to hear it out because, really, what can measure up to all of the bodies on his hand? Jyn tells him the whole story--you don't hear her re-tell it because I explain it later, which is why Cassian doesn't really feel that it's her fault, and why he's willing to stand beside her despite it. They all have sins, all have blood on their hands--who is he to judge her for something that she never even wanted to do when she was nine flipping years old? 
> 
> Moving on, Draven has been on this case since he first entered the FBI in his young twenties. He's always thought it was weird that Jyn's DNA was found everywhere in the lab, but his suspicions were brushed off because Jyn was Galen's daughter--of course, sometimes, she would be there with him. Even when she was 9 and was forced to go through interrogations, she mentioned briefly she was at the lab in one of the many other rooms but didn't hear or see anything before Saw came to pick her up. This is nothing new, and the interrogations are not strong enough to convict either Jyn or Saw. The case becomes cold because investigators can't figure out the timeline of the story for Galen to kill Krennic, then kill himself, and have the gun completely out of range, especially considering where the gun wounds are. Years later, Draven is able to clean the surveillance footage that tangibly places Jyn and Saw around the time of death, and they rule it as enough evidence to re-open the case.
> 
> Unfortunately, there's still not enough evidence to convict Jyn as the murderer. /the end/
> 
> SIDE SIDE NOTE: come visit me on tumblr here [@ma-chelle](http://ma-chelle.tumblr.com/)


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